when a country's stock market gets crushed due to wider economic concerns, some promising often stocks get unfairly punished. Here are five foreign companies whose shares are trading now at attractive prices, along with explanations for why they're such bargains.

Looking for a new place to call home? Spain wants to welcome you with a bit more than a basket of baked goods. In an attempt to reduce the country's vast stock of unsold homes, the government is set to offer permanent residency to any foreigner who buys a house or apartment worth more than $200,000.

Credit rating agency Moody's is threatening to downgrade U.S. debt if Washington doesn't get its act together soon -- which could (perhaps) increase the government's borrowing costs. That would be troublesome, but the really scary U.S. debt problem is China's economic slowdown.

Europe is edging closer to recession, dragged down by the crippling debt problems of the 17-country eurozone, official figures showed Tuesday: The economies of both the eurozone and the full EU shrank by 0.2% in the second quarter, after a flat first quarter.

It's been a day of milestones for the stock market. Stronger corporate earnings reports and expectations that central banks will act to support the economy powered the Standard & Poor's 500 index past 1,400 for the first time in three months.

Finance ministers from the 17 countries that use the euro have approved the terms for a bailout loan for Spanish banks. The first 30 billion euros of up to 100 billion euros in loans will be disbursed this month.

A day after winning EU approval for a huge bank bailout, Spain's government imposed further austerity on the country Wednesday as it unveiled sales tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at shaving $79.85 billion off the state budget over the next two and a half years.

The European Central Bank has cut its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to a record low of 0.75% to boost a eurozone economy weighed down by the continent's crisis over too much government debt.

Unemployment in the 17-country euro currency bloc hit another record high in May -- 11.1% -- as the crippling financial crisis pushed the continent toward the brink of recession, official figures showed Monday.

A late recovery on Wall Street wiped out most of the stock market's losses Thursday, leaving the Dow Jones industrial average down just 25 points. The Dow had been down as much as 177 points but came back sharply at the end of the day.

U.S. employers created only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up. The dismal jobs data will fan fears that the economy is sputtering. But it could lead the Fed to take further steps to help it.

Sunday's elections in France and Greece were a firm vote against austerity, and that means the future of the eurozone is again in doubt. Here's why the bond markets care so much -- and why you should, too.

Markets dipped Monday after official data confirmed that Spain is back in its second recession in three years. Investors had initially bid up stocks on hopes that the Fed would provide more stimulus to the U.S. economy.

Forget unstoppable psychopaths in hockey masks -- on Friday the 13th, the biggest terrors sometimes hit our wallets. No, the Great Crash of 1929 didn't start on a Friday, but a fair number of financial disasters did.

Stock markets in Europe traded in fairly narrow ranges Monday as Germany's leader warned that Greece may not get its next batch of bailout cash. Chinese shares surged after authorities pledged to increase bank lending to entrepreneurs. Europe's stumbling efforts to get a handle on its debt crisis remains the focus of interest in the markets.

By most indications, the U.S. economy is recovering fairly well for the time being. But across the Pond in Europe, another story is unfolding that has the stock market worried -- and it should have your attention, too.

Many European nations have deficits that make the U.S. look thrifty, and over a year after their problems came to light, they're still holding the worldwide recovery back. But because they share the euro, normal solutions aren't available, which means the EU must bite the bullet and accept an orderly default, or watch matters spiral downward.

LDK Solar has long depended on demand driven by government subsidies from countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy, which makes it vulnerable in this period of European austerity. Trefis has revised its estimates for LDK Solar down -- but still meaningfully above the market price.

The European debt crisis is back: Portugal is in political turmoil, and may need a major bailout, and Spain may too. But the E.U.'s strong healthy are rebelling against propping up their weaker neighbors. The real issue, though, is that the E.U. hasn't yet addressed the fundamental flaw built into it at the euro's creation.

Debt and government spending are firmly at the top of the new Congress's agenda. Just the threat that the U.S. wouldn't pay its bills has traders worried and wondering if the U.S. could end up on the same chaotic economic path taken by Greece or Spain.

The big national stock market winners of 2010 scored returns far above those of U.S. markets by piggybacking on China's ferocious growth. But rebounding American equities look mighty impressive next to the year's real losers: the victims of the eurozone debt crisis.